The Sharp Knife, of a Short Life
by elleffsee
Summary: Natasha must deal with the aftermath of the battle. Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Torture, slight AU of movie ending


The battle was won; New York, for the most part, had survived the attack from Loki's army. It all should've been over and done with, behind them, an adventure that was now at its conclusion. But it wasn't. It wasn't even near over.

Natasha had made her way down from the Tesseract and the Doctor after the portal closed. The others were on their way up, the order given by Rogers in their connected headsets. In the meantime, Natasha was to keep watch on Loki, temporarily knocked unconscious by what she assumed was the Hulk, until they all arrived to make sure he didn't escape or worse.

For the first time since he'd been in the cage, she really got a chance to study him. His pale eyelids were closed, dark hair a mess around his head, and breathing slow, but steady. He appeared to be sleeping, but Natasha wondered if gods even needed to sleep. She let out a long breath and shifted away but still made sure to keep an eye on him. She did a quick check of her body to see what was injured and what would need the longest to heal. Just a few bruises, some scratches, and a broken nail, but everything else was fine. She'd live to fight another day. Not that she expected any less.

The others arrived slowly. First there was Hulk who came in through the shattered window. He grunted at the sight of Loki but didn't react further. Natasha swallowed and fought to hold her ground and refused to take a step back from the green creature. Hulk wasn't long in her company before Thor helping a weak Tony into the room. Natasha didn't ask; she could assume that he hadn't landed very well after leaving the portal. Rogers strode into the room and took control of the situation from the get-go. Natasha let him because at the same time Clint had come in. Without really noticing it, she shifted closer to him when he stood in the group.

Considering how long they had been partners, it wasn't to be unexpected, really.

-

Death had become a familiar thing. She'd gotten so used to it at that point that it seemed that's all she would ever know. It would only be a matter of time before her own marked the bloody red ledger. She wouldn't make a mistake, but the day would come when someone who would land a fatal blow on her one second faster than she could do in return.

That happened the night in the hotel in Zagreb.

Natasha had felt watched, and had done all day. The only trouble preventing her from acting upon the feeling was she didn't know_where_ her pursuant was. It was just a shadow, a feeling stirred up by the unsettling nature of her business. But she didn't get to be as talented as she was without having some occurrences of paranoia turn out to be accurate.

It's why she tried to give her tail the slip, and succeeded for a few brief moments until she came face to face with him, on the roof of the hotel. He had appeared as startled as she was to run into him from so close. He'd been moving to try to find her again after her disappearance; she had been trying to escape from him.

She stood frozen, unmoving as her hunter stood watching her. He had an arrow laid across his bow, the string half-taught as he stared at her sudden appearance. She stood straight, proudly and waited for him to strike. When the moments drew longer and longer and the hunter made no move towards her, she took a single step back.

"You're not what I expected up close," the man finally said.

Natasha just quirked an eyebrow. "Don't make expectations of uncertainties."

The man just smiled and lowered his bow a fraction.

-

Loki was chained with what Thor considered to be 'indestructible irons' and they lead him from the ruins of Stark Tower. Tony seemed to be recovering, albeit slowly; he had been shifted to lean on Steve's shoulder as Thor took care of his wayward brother. Hulk occasionally roared and randomly smashed bits of glass in Loki's general direction, much to Clint's amusement.

Natasha couldn't get rid of the feeling that something wasn't quite right. The fight hadn't been an easy one, but how could it really be over with the closing of a portal? Shouldn't there have been more sparks or something? Shouldn't there have been more death? She always expected death; it wasn't so unlikely in her line of work, even now.

Clint nudged her shoulder lightly as they all started down the stairs. "What's wrong, Miss Romanova?"

Natasha almost smiled at the sing-song cadence in his voice. Clint was so…familiar and comfortable. He was predictable.

"Just seems a little easy is all." She replied quietly.

"Well I would hate to see her version of difficult!" Tony called back up the stairs as they made their way down. Steve had to be the gentleman to calm him down after Tony started on a rant about how important and helpful he'd been taking care of the bomb the way he had.

Clint just shrugged a little. "It's over now. Let's get some shawarma or whatever the hell it is, so he'll just shut up."

Clint rolled his eyes and Natasha did smile then.

-

Nobody at S.H.I.E.L.D. trusted her.

It was obvious in the way they walked, wary of how she walked around them. They stared, spoke in whispers, some louder. They gave her a wide berth every time she entered the room. She didn't mind; she liked the solitude but how could they expect her to 'meld' into the organization when they were keeping her at arm's length?

Meld. It's what Nick Fury had claimed he'd wanted her to do. He hadn't immediately put her into his organization's population. He'd kept her alone for the full defection. The only one allowed to visit her had been Fury himself, and the man with the odd sense of humor and quick lift of a smile. _Clint._ His name was Clint, she had to keep telling herself.

He was the only one that didn't seem to be afraid of her if she entered the room. Instead, he seemed to like it.

They trained together because she needed the practice and he needed a partner. She could guess that if he had asked any of the other agents they would have agreed, but if she had tried to do so? Well, perhaps he was just being nice to spare her the embarrassment. He was a skilled fighter, but she could beat him far easier than it was for him to best her. However, at distance, he had the greater advantage and she didn't care enough to run and find out just how accurate he was with that bow.

The idea had occurred to her more than once. Run from this, run from what she didn't know. Run from defection or picking a side. She just wanted to go back to being reliant on only herself and the sources she used for shelter and weaponry. She wanted to get back to the simplicity of only a paycheck and a target. It was easy then.

Natasha Romanoff wasn't a coward, though. She wasn't going to run anywhere.

-

They had made it all the way down from the topmost floor and to the lobby of the tower. Tony was cursing himself for having decided that he needed one of the absolute tallest buildings in all of the City. Everyone paused to get their breath from such a height, everyone but Hulk that was. After about the third flight of stairs, he had roared and smashed through the stairwell wall and jumped from the building. A suicide fall that he broke by latching onto the neighboring building and climbing down.

Clint shook his head and kept walking down, though his jokes had significantly been reduced after the twenty-seventh stairwell.

Natasha kept quiet and brought up the back with Clint. They were the most easy-going of the pair, but that didn't mean they were completely lax in their guard. Every Avenger in that stairwell had their eyes on Loki. They still didn't trust him, even if he had surrendered.

-

Budapest was their third mission together, and the first as her status as a fully operational field agent. They had a new handler by the name of Phil Coulson who seemed very capable with his job and who Natasha had a tolerance for. She wouldn't go right to saying she liked him; liking someone only meant that they would inevitably go away, whether it be their murder, or they just quit the job and got out of the business. Everyone left for one reason or another.

They were posing as an engaged couple to extract intelligence to prevent a mass bombing back in the States. It should've been easy, in and out and that was that, mission accomplished.

They'd been compromised, but not of their own doing. Someone, had leaked the true nature of their identities to their mark. The only thing they had managed to find out about the mole was a grainy photograph, but enough detail to make out pale skin, dark hair and equally dark eyes.

It had been sabotage from the moment they'd stepped foot into the city. It had all come to a head inside the mark's hotel, where Natasha and Clint had become separated. He was in the lobby holding off guards, and she had cornered the target in his hotel room and was trying to get information from him as well as fight off his guards.

Natasha finally managed to get a name of the terrorist, but it was a useless one. Frustrated with his lack of cooperation and attempts to have her killed, she got to him first. With a simple snap of his neck, her frustration ended and she started out of the room to help Clint. She replayed the name in her mind, Elle, before filing it away for use at a later date and returned to action phase. Their job wasn't over and they'd have to find a way out of this the hard way.

"Nice of you to show up, hold on just a moment darling," Clint said and shot three arrows at the same time to three different members of the same terrorist organization that was behind the bomb plot.

"When you're ready, love." Natasha returned and took out another armed man.

Clint smiled a feral smile before pulling another arrow from his quiver.

-

Thor bound Loki in even more chains when they reached the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter before passing him off outside. Thor was inclined to accompany his brother, but Tony had somehow convinced him to at least try shawarma with the rest of the group. Natasha had heard part of the convincing. "It'll be something new for you to try. Remember how much you love coffee? Shawarma could be the next best thing!"

As much as she wanted to believe him, she didn't think shawarma would be as good as coffee, or as rewarding.

Clint smiled when she rolled her eyes and they both ducked into the lobby bathrooms. They had scrapes and bruises to tend to. Food could wait a few more minutes, they'd decided.

Natasha was using a paper towel to dab at the few cuts across her cheek when Clint came up behind her.

"That was pretty badass taking on Loki like that." He said and wrapped an arm around her waist. She leaned back into his body for a few moments instead of answering verbally. Clint smiled a little and held her. "I'm proud of you."

Natasha smiled back at him through the mirror.

-

Broken and bleeding with rain falling down in torrents, Natasha and Clint managed to escape into what appeared very much to be a shed. In the middle of the Amazon, they really weren't particular about the shelter they had managed to find, they were just glad to have found it.

Having fought off a ward of drug runners and then getting lost inside the jungle for a few hours, they'd stumbled upon a village of fairly adequate size. Relieved, they slid down the wall of the small shack and caught their breaths.

"Good work with that knife. You saved me a broken bone or two," Clint said breathlessly in a laugh.

"And you mine with an arrow to the head. Thanks."

She had long stopped caring about their macabre sense of humor and exchanges of thank you's at moments like this. They had survived together and that's all that was important.

The rain fell heavily outside the door behind them and Natasha and Clint held eye contact for several unbroken moments. It was long enough for Clint to get a notion to lean across the small space between them and kiss her.

It wasn't their first kiss, but it was the first time he had pulled her closer into his lap and held on.

Natasha used to think sex was just something to do, not something to enjoy or find pleasurable.

That day in the rainforest with Clint changed everything.

-

The dinner table was quiet as the Avengers recuperated in their own ways. Cap was taking what he would classify as a power nap; Thor was contentedly eating shawarma. Tony seemed rather quiet considering his talkative nature and Dr. Banner seemed eager to get some energy and strength of his own back after his incidents with Hulk.

Clint was tired, too, Natasha knew. He had to be because she was. They stayed silent because nobody was really inclined to care what anyone had to say. Silence was the best option to relax and get some strength back into their bodies.

That didn't mean Clint couldn't talk with his body. He was still trying to protect her, now, with his leg on her chair. Natasha rolled her eyes when he first put it up there. As if she would need _him_ as protection. Nevertheless, she let him leave it there and kept quiet.

-

They weren't like rabbits that had to do it all the time, nor were they teenagers who couldn't keep their hands off one another for longer than a few minutes. They weren't trying to compensate for lost time, or for lack of other forms of entertainment. It was nothing like any of that.

They simply had sex a lot because they wanted to.

Clint was very talented with his hands, and not just with a bow and arrow. His tongue could do things other than be sarcastic, and his lips could deliver more lasting effects than his words ever could.

Natasha's agility and stamina proved to be a valuable asset, as well as her determination and commitment to the cause. She could drive Clint to the brink just as easily as he could to her, before she would pull back and do it all over again.

After a mission, he would often take her home with him, back to his 'nest' as he called it. Natasha found that the bed, with its comfortable pillows and sheets, was very much like a nest and it was where they would spend a lot of their down time together. Not every time would be fast and frenzied. There were many times where he would hold her against his body and rock himself with her in a slow, gentle motion.

He would kiss her deeply as he thrust into her and then he would hold, long enough for her to mewl slightly in the back of her throat and practically beg him to move. He would, but only after she had said his name once or twice.

The times when Natasha controlled things would have Clint on his back and holding on to the headboard as his hips drove upward into her. He would groan loudly and his eyes would screw shut as every cell in his body pushed just a little bit harder to satisfy him. Afterward, he'd be breathless and wouldn't be able to move for anything in the world.

They didn't call it love, though. It was a word that they didn't speak. Love was for children; love was something that could be broken easily. Love would ruin them, so they never said it.

-

_"Loki's escaped."_

The news rocks the table and it's only a second's lull before they all spring into action. Cap rouses from his nap and jumps up and starts to interrogate Fury; Tony just groans and says how he'll never be able to fix his suit before he'll need it again. Banner starts to shake and Thor joins Cap trying to figure out how and why.

Clint and Natasha just share a look and nod as they slip away into the shadows before disappearing. They both heard enough to have a pretty good idea where Loki can be found.

-

"Don't take too long, Nat. I get lonely when you're not around. I have to…take care of things all by myself…"

His voice is more than suggestive and Natasha knows what he's playing at. She smiles with the phone between her shoulder and her ear while her fingers lazily trail along her abdomen.

"Tell me." She says softly and can hear him settling back in probably his office chair, turned away from the door and looking out the window to the city below.

"I start getting lonely, and then I start thinking of you. And that starts getting me hard." He says in his unique cadence that she has grown to expect and finds pleasing. Her fingers drift a little closer to where she wishes his mouth was instead.

"And then what do you do?" She asks simply.

He is all too happy to tell her in full, colorful detail.

-

Central Park is a good place to take a family, or run if you're an escaped criminal.

They find Loki near a fountain of the angels and she finds it ironic. She even says so.

"Trying to pray to go home, Odinson?"

Loki stiffened at the jab and at her sudden appearance. He turns slowly and sees her, but he doesn't see Clint, or if he does, makes no effort of saying so. Loki smiles a little, slowly and with lots of mischief in his expression.

"I don't believe in angels, Agent Romanoff. But Barton does." Natasha doesn't flinch or react in any way. Clint hides in the shadows with an arrow poised and ready. "He thinks you are one, the dear boy," Loki starts to laugh in genuine amusement. Natasha still doesn't move.

"Your brother will be very unhappy you didn't follow his—"

"_Good_." The word seeps out with venom in every letter. Loki's eyes have suddenly turned dark, a familiar shade that Natasha can't quite place, and the mischief is gone.

"You've caused enough trouble for one day. You should save this fight for another one." Natasha says and shifts her body when Loki starts to move. She follows his steps in equal measure to keep the distance between them the same, no more and no less. She doesn't want him escaping yet again.

"I'll fight when I am ready, and you won't stop me, little spider. Nor will your hawk."

Loki's body seems to shimmer and Natasha suddenly feels him behind her. He spins their bodies so that they point in the direction Clint is with his arrows. She notices that the shimmering version of himself has disappeared and the solidness behind her body reminds her that she forgot about his magic trick.

His breath is warm and sickeningly honest in her ear.

"Barton won't shoot with you so close. The only way he would get to me is to use an exploding arrow, but he won't. He wouldn't hurt his angel, his spider. You've pulled him into your web and this time one of you will die for it."

Natasha swallows and shifts to fight her way out of the grip, but Loki's hold was strong. She guessed he used another parlor magic trick to bind her limbs to her body, because when she tried to move them, they wouldn't budge. With her arms pinned to her side and her legs useless, Loki was easily able to keep a tight hand at her throat where he squeezed tightly. He spoke again; his words sending shivers down her spine.

"I'm waiting for your precious Barton to make a choice. Get the target and kill us both, or see if he'll let me kill you first. I admit, I'd much rather have controlled him so that he could've ended you instead, but this way brings much pleasure to me. He'll still be destroyed when you're dead."

Loki smiled a little and dragged her backwards toward the fountain. He made sure to keep firm control of her limbs so she couldn't free herself and to keep an eye on a spot in the shadows. That didn't stop Natasha from wriggling and making herself as much of bulk weight as she could. No matter how much she tried, though, Loki's magic was too strong for her to break free.

"Don't Clint! It's what he wants!" Natasha shouted before Loki crushed her throat underneath his hand. He moved her, whether it was with magic or not, Natasha didn't know, and grabbed her by the hair. She winced and felt her eyes water at the tightness of his grip.

"Barton, decide. The mission, or your partner. The choice is yours." Loki seemed to shrug and that was the last thing Natasha knew before her head was shoved into the water of the fountain.

Natasha had been in a similar position and had almost drowned several times before, but she had always been able to fight her way out. She had been bound once, but still managed to feign her death long enough to be pulled out and then she attacked her captor. She had never not been able to fight back in some way before. But with Loki's magic… She wasn't giving up, but she also hoped that Clint would find a way around the obvious attack and outsmart Loki. It wasn't that she didn't have faith in her partner, but she also knew he would try anything to save her, not necessarily thinking things through first.

_Clint was predictable._

Suddenly, she had her head banged hard against the stone side of the fountain and in her disoriented state, fell forwards, hitting herself again. It took a moment or two of choking before she realized the hold on her had gone, and she could move her limbs again. As soon as she had realized it though, strong familiar arms were pulling her up out of the water. Choking, she coughed up the water she had swallowed while Clint held her tightly to his body.

"You're all right, it's all okay Tasha." He kept saying and pulled her away from the fountain. "Just stand her a minute."

He turned and went back towards the fountain. When the daze had faded in a moment, Natasha saw that Clint was fighting Loki with the long knife he kept inside his uniform. Feeling useless, Natasha moved forward to help, but her head caused her to sway unsteadily and she stumbled to the ground.

"Just chill, Tasha, I have this one." Clint managed as he kicked at Loki's legs to unsteady the god. Natasha wouldn't let it go, though, and stood again. She took a deep breath to steady herself and moved forward to help her partner.

When her dizziness faded a little more, Natasha rushed when Clint was doubling back up after having been hit in the jaw. She threw most of her weight into a punch at Loki's face before going after his upper body. With her help, Clint caught Loki in the stomach with his bow before shifting it like a baseball bat and took another swing at Loki's head.

Both of them heard an almighty roar and for a brief second they looked to see Hulk running at a very quick speed towards them. Smiling a little in relief that backup had come, Natasha shifted and kicked Loki again. The sound of thunder echoed loudly across the sky and for the first time, Loki, despite everything at his second attempt at escape, looked tired.

Clint and Natasha held back for a brief moment.

"Give it up, Loki. It's over." Clint shouted over the sound from the sky.

Loki shook his head with a dark smile on his face. "No, I won't give it up. Not without a reward for my labors."

The god's eyes flicked toward Natasha and that's all it took for Clint to rush forward to put himself between her and Loki.

Clint was predictable, and Loki was an uncertainty that Clint had made an exception on.

Having his doppelganger pick it up, Loki stabbed the long knife into Clint's abdomen when the master archer rushed him. Natasha didn't see at first, and it was too late when she had. Clint made a sound of surprise, his eyes wide and he managed to see Loki's darkly amused smile as he fell backwards, knife still in Loki's hand.

Hulk grabbed Loki by his head and started to smash him into the ground, right when Natasha pulled Clint away from both of them. Clint had started to choke and she could tell that he would never make it to a doctor in time. Swallowing her own fears, she looked back up towards the mission…but Hulk had it well and truly in hand.

She pulled Clint away towards a small patch of grass at far enough distance that he wouldn't be harmed by Hulk's smashing of the fountain and Loki. She could tell that Thor had appeared and was assisting in trying to get Loki away from Hulk long enough to bind him again.

Natasha looked down at Clint and pulled at the shirt he was wearing to see how bad his wound was.

"I…shouldn't have…stupid…" Clint groaned in pain and Natasha shushed him softly.

"Don't, don't move." She said numbly and swallowed while pressing a ripped part of his shirt into the wound to try to stop its bleeding. This wasn't how today was supposed to end. The day was already supposed to have been over. Loki was supposed to be in interrogation and then finding his way back to his realm. He wasn't supposed to be fighting Hulk and Thor and possibly killing Clint.

Clint smiled in pained amusement. "I'll…I'll tell Phil hi for you."

Natasha shook her head, the water from the fountain spraying little drops onto his face. "No. You won't cause you're not going to be seeing him for a while. We're partners, you have to stay for me. I would for you."

Clint's smile slipped just a little. "I-I know you would."

He started to choke a little more and Natasha pressed a little harder on his wound, causing him to groan. The bleeding wasn't stopping.

"You can't go Barton. I'm not letting you quit now." She ordered harshly and looked him sternly in the eyes.

"I'm…sorry…Tasha…" his voice started to soften, and his hold on her arm lessened. "I…"

"Clint," Natasha shook her head and shifted closer. Her voice was pained and small. "I'm not losing you."

He grimaced and tried to speak. "I…loved…you. That's why…I couldn't…"

She nodded and kept her eyes on his. The warmth of his blood was hot against her hands. "I know."

He nodded once, and tried to smile. He couldn't quite manage it before his body went completely still and the eyes she knew so well remained open, unseeing, and Natasha closed her own and bowed her head while she still held tightly to his body.

Part of her was dead and it wasn't going to come back.

-

"Thor sends his regards, if you want them." Tony said quietly. "It was the last thing he said before he and Loki—"

Natasha just nodded once and kept her eyes staring straight out the window.

She hadn't spoken since that night in the Park, not even at the psychiatrist's prodding. Fury, Stark, Banner, even Rogers hadn't gotten anything out of her. She had simply closed off.

"I'm sorry," Tony said genuinely. "He was a great man."

Once more, Natasha just nodded. She didn't look over at any point, even when Tony left. She couldn't. She didn't want to see the sympathy, the pity, or anything else that would be in any of their faces. She just wanted to be alone for a while.

Tony understood and that's why he had left.

Despite the silence and solitude that stretched for hours after his departure, Natasha still couldn't cope with it. She couldn't even say his name anymore. She had lost the only two people she had trusted in the entire world in less than three days at the hands of one person. She had lost her partner, her lover, her _friend_ because of his effort to protect her.

Clint was predictable, and he wouldn't have let her get hurt. Loki knew that and had used it against him. Clint's fatal flaw had been her.

Natasha closed her eyes as a tear drop slid out.

The guilt was overwhelming and she could only hope one day she might recover from it.


End file.
